Is there a drop dead date for either the deal going forward with Sycamore, or WBA remains public?
36 replies (most recent on top)
The decision to take the company private, based on the proxy information, started early last year. They were talking with Sycamore since at least June 2024. All the "this is just a rumor and we're committed to our turnaround plan." was pure high grade BS. Look back on the information we were told all last year and up in till the March announcement. Remember this If you are an employee while listening to them on the July 15 2025 town hall, it will be more BS.
"On July 26, 2024, following up on the discussions from the month prior and to further facilitate discussions between the Company and Sycamore
Sycamore’s evaluation of the Company, the Company entered into a confidentiality agreement with Sycamore. The confidentiality agreement
a customary standstill provision that permitted Sycamore to make nonpublic acquisition proposals to the Board, as well as competing acquisition
proposals at any time after the Company entered into a definitive acquisition agreement with a third party. Following execution of the confidentiality
agreement, Sycamore was provided access to select financial and business due diligence information to facilitate its evaluation of the Company."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/walgreens-lost-decade-m-mania-110000891.html
@31v I would expect Sycamore to take a "hard look" at just about everything at Walgreens. You mentioned a couple areas and I'm sure anyone who works for Walgreens could add more failures to the list. Rest assured, Sycamore will squeeze every dime out of its investment. Anything that's not turning a profit will be jettisoned. Sycamore is not here to save Walgreens but to make profit for their investors. The post about not knowing about private equity laid what seems to be a very likely scenario.
I work in U.S. Healthcare at Walgreens. For over a year, leadership has been pushing the Gene and Cell initiative. Despite spending heavily to build the facility, there’s still no dr-g or therapy in use—and the system meant to manage the program still doesn’t work. It's been a complete waste of money.
In Central Specialty, they’ve been trying to upgrade their management system for more than eight years. After millions of dollars, it still doesn’t function properly.
Sycamore needs to take a hard look at the financials behind both of these failures and fire the people responsible.
I think the remaining under performing stores will be closed within 6 months after being taken over by Sycamore. Corporate layoffs and consolidations will happen during that time as well.
Thank you for the great information!
@2xr But Tim Wentworth said this is all part of Walgreen's turnaround plan. Do you mean to say that Sycamore has other plans? I'm shocked!
A lot of you really don’t know what private equity is let alone what their ultimate goal is. “They may close more stores…that are barely profitable”. They are 100% going to close more stores and barely profitable isn’t going to cut it. They’ll keep the high volume stores then they’ll decide on a IRR number that every other store has to hit. Those will strictly be stores with a very high OP and probably some other metric like sales psf or rent as a percentage of sales. Everything else will close and be rolled into a bankruptcy (see big lots for example). Walgreens will have less than 3,000 stores 3 years from now.
It doesn't state that there will not be store closing. It's been known for a while that Walgreens targeted 1200 under performing stores to be closed original over 3 years. 240 or so were closed this year which leaves 960. Sycamore may add stores that are barely breaking even or have a small profit to that count.
Do a search of what Sycamore has done in the past to get an idea of aggressive cost cutting measures. If you work at Walgreens I'm sure you can spot a lot of wasteful spending or unnecessary management/support personal.
@2k0+1jwt6f4y3 What aggressive cost cutting will Sycamore do? Why won't Sycamore do store closings?
@2aa I believe it would be sometime in September if the shareholders vote "For" at the meeting. Any government oversight will be minimum since no one wants another Rite-Aid situation to happen. After the close Sycamore will do their aggressive cost-cutting which has certainly been decided on already. I don't mean store closings because that will be swift and I doubt it would take 2 years to complete.
A communication went out to stockholders yesterday that there will be a special meeting July 11 to vote on the Sycamore buyout, so looks like it could close sooner than the original October 30 closure target date.
@OP once deal goes through. Wag. Will be a private company. Sycamore can do whatever it wants. No need to answer to a board. No need to to worry about earnings or care about stock price. Number one goal is to return money to investors.
https://youtu.be/fLnqXZ4kpJw?si=HlJc-PxW3UUqO0dt
Employees have been leaving Walgreens.
Most stores, if not all, have a really hard time keeping staff and recruiting staff. This has always been the case for at least a number of years but recently it is harder than ever. Stores that previously had good staffing no longer do.
Many long term employees have left. I know of several long term employees who were making exist plans as early as the 2010s. People, especially long term people, could see what was happening.
Even people who stuck it out for a decade or two longer, have gone to better companies.
Employees are leaving and have left.
Add in the fact that Walgreens probably staffs 25% (or less) than what it used to, then the numbers are even more severe as to just how many staff members are no longer there.
Walgreens operates more than 10,000 stores. Yes, some people are going to choose to work there and stay there for now. It's just not realistic to think that a company that has that many locations is just going to not have any staff at all. Someone lives close to a store and needs a job. People will apply.
It may not be the best decision but I trust that whoever is still working at Walgreens or who decides to grab a job at a Walgreens, has their reasons. Further, even if the company is going away soon, or at least going to be a lot less than it was, there are still some good teams out there and people generally like working with their coworkers even if the company is bad. I mean, what company is actually good. I don't know any job that is actually super special even if Walgreens is a bad company.
Thank you.
https://youtu.be/9S-kFZ4O1Oc?si=OMf8NVUCV1y4v-fy
@1ky I'm in the same boat. Simply waiting to see if I get laid off and can get the measly severance. Otherwise I'm just going to retire anyway.
@1kj Yes. We get it. Walgreens is trash and people are stupid or lazy for staying. I guess I'm just not invested enough to care so much about why people stay at Walgreens. I'm still here and am able to retire anytime. Fortunately for me a previous job paid well and provided great benefits, including a 401k that has grown considerably. That previous job went away after our company was bought out and our division was closed. You are correct that many cannot retire on what Walgreens pays. For anyone believing that Sycamore will be saving Walgreens, the two videos in this thread may change your mind. If an opportunity outside of Walgreens presents itself, strongly consider it. For my part, I'm curious to stick around and watch the chaos unfold. The decision to finally leave Walgreens may soon be made for us anyway.
@1jb a lot of workers at walgreens are dilusional. They drink the kool aid. They have more excuses, some say I am near retirement and just waiting to retire...ya right..not many at walgreens are in that position to retire and even if you were that is just a cop out. For the most of them...no one else will hire them....that is why they stay at walgreens. Oh ya some say "it's not that easy to find another job".. Another cop out, plenty jobs out there..Stay at walgreens then...guess that is all you know. Stay with the paying fines nonstop, corrupt, managed poorly company, that is being bought by vultures. Good luck.
@1he hope. Their goal is to make money to enrich the 1%. Anyone thinks thinks they’re here to turn around wag. Is delusional.
@1e6 After seeing the video, it doesn't sound like private equity is our friend.
@1ct Reading some the reddit posts regarding Staples, they appear almost identical to the Walgreens reddit. Walgreens is already a pretty abysmal work experience. It will be interesting to see what Sycamore will do to make it worse.
https://youtu.be/oakKv8QbFQE?si=5GSgiDxUTsjv-tN5
2016: Staples had 1500 stores
2017: Sycamore buys Staples
2025: Staples has 800 stores.
Roughly, half of the stores closed once Sycamore bought Staples.
@1ct Being delusional seems to be a key qualification for survival at Walgreens. I wish I could be more delusional. It would make working at Walgreens more tolerable.
@1cn don’t have a crystal ball. Sycamore primary interest is to get paid. Not employees first. They’ll probably borrow more off Wag. Saddle it with more debt. Strip more from the stores. Some employees are delusional and think Sycamore is here to save Wag. I know a few that still work there. Once they’re done extracting whatever they can. See you. They bought staples in 2017. Check out Reddit and see how employees feel.
@13t After watching the video, one gets the idea of where Walgreens could be headed. Not good. Working at Walgreens, I'm struck by how oblivious many of us seem to be about what most likely will happen when Sycamore takes over. An earlier post predicting layoffs and eventual bankruptcy seems pretty accurate.
https://youtu.be/7LukTYfmyjM?si=RMtonosITxspyF-l
Does it really matter
The Proxy vote is scheduled for July 11 based on the latest SEC filings.
The proxy vote has to happen first. Once that date is known the closing of the sale will happen very soon after. Followed by layoffs, reorgs, restructuring and Chapter 11 bankruptcy to handle the debt.
Sycamore deal will happen. Tim and Neal will sell the company, make their money and leave. They have no incentive to keep the company public.
It all comes down to Walgreens year (August) vs. Actual year (December). LOL.
They should have just said the month!!!!!!
It’s always been communicated to happen end of FY. So I’m thinking July or August it will close.
They said it would be in the 4th quarter if everything went well. October through December is the range.
The articles all said by the end of the year.
I was hoping they were talking about the end of Walgreens year, which would be earlier.
However, the consensus among people it that they meant end of the actual year which is December.
Good question. Never saw a definite date. If memory serves, around September may be when the deal is expected to close. Tim Wentworth mentioned something about licensing taking awhile. The longer it takes, the more time Sycamore has to rethink their decision. If they backed out, we'd quickly see what the real value of WBA stock is. That said, I'd be surprised if the deal didn't happen. Either way, I don't expect it to be great for employees. Even some of the Kool-aid drinkers may have a hard time with upcoming cuts and changes.